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Congratulations on your new baby! Bringing home the newest addition to your family can stir up so many feelings (thank you hormones) from joy and excitement to fatigue and stress. All of which are totally okay, by the way.

Maybe this isn’t your first baby and you’re already a pro swaddler, but if you’ve recently started a blog or work from home business, then you’re probably asking a lot more questions this time around than the standard “should my baby be spitting up this much?”

My point is parenting is hard and so is running a blog or freelance business. Put the two together and you’re bound to face some obstacles and serious stress. Whether this is your first baby or tenth and whether you’ve been blogging for a year or want to start, these tips are for you.

Five weeks ago we brought home baby Emma and life has been a blur since. From losing my biggest client to watching our toddler throw tantrum after tantrum from jealousy, finding the motivation and time to get work in has been tough. Tough but definitely not impossible thanks to some key tools and tricks I use to maximize my time at home.

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In the past I’ve talked about how much I wish I had like 100 more hours each day to work on my freelance writing and my blog. I felt if I could just have more time, I would be so wildly successful. Turns out, and I’m guessing it’s this way for most, I do have the time! I just haven’t been respecting it. My relationship with time has been complete crap. Leaving the house late, forgetting to defrost the chicken for dinner, falling asleep and waking up at different times each day are all prime examples of me not showing Time the love it so deserves. So no wonder it wasn’t loving me back.

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Trust me, I’ve done it too. I have scoured Pinterest for the latest and greatest in earning money online. I have dug through those massive list posts with 101 ways to make $101 extra income each month. If that’s you right now, I totally get it.

Those posts can be so inspiring. They provide a nice illusion of easy money and endless possibilities for the work from homer or side hustler. Then, upon further digging, link clicking, subscribing, and filling in the same form over and over again, your hopes are crushed. Why? Because half of these make money online ideas don’t work. Well, it’s not that they don’t actually make money, it’s just that they suck.

Without further ado, here are the absolute worst ways to try and make money online in my opinion. Feel free to give them a try yourself but I’m just trying to save you some time here.

So, a content mill is basically a site that allows “writers” to sign up and claim the available jobs. Usually you have to take some kind of writing test first but I’m pretty sure anyone capable of reading this page would pass. Then after they carefully select you as a writer (eye roll) you have the pleasure of trying to select a decent writing job from the list. After you’ve spent an hour or more crafting a beautiful 500 word piece in hopes of getting a good review, you get paid! You get paid like a dollar. I’m so serious. It’s seriously a dollar. What a way to earn a living.

Since I kind of feel like you don’t believe me, here’s the proof.

Survey Sites

Oh. My. God. Do not even get me started on how much I loathe survey sites with the entirety of my being. My soul aches at the thought of signing up for one of these ridiculous programs. I have tried them all people. From Inbox Dollars to iSay, they are all the same. I might have enjoyed them if I had qualified for other surveys aside from the one asking for my personal information. But no. I never, ever qualify to take the actual surveys.

Am I the only one?

Why don’t they want my opinion?

I MATTER!

Okay, anyway. Even if I did qualify for their lousy surveys, I don’t think $0.25 for 5 minutes of my life is worth it. Do you know how much time I’d have to take every day and how many survey sites I would have to be on to make a decent side hustle? Many. Very, very many. It just isn’t worth it.

Rebates

Hold on Ibotta lovers, don’t run away yet. I actually don’t mind rebates but I don’t consider them to be a side hustle or a source of extra income.

So… why are you putting it on this list?

I have seen a ton of other bloggers put apps like Ibotta, MobiSave, and Ebates on their list of ways to earn money from home and it just doesn’t make sense to me. You shouldn’t go buy things to save money. Isn’t that a bit counterintuitive? I am ALL FOR these apps and rebates when you use them because you actually had to do holiday shopping or you did really need to buy groceries. That makes sense to me but the amount you get back is so small each month, I wouldn’t mark this as a way to make money.

Some of my favorite rebate type apps

Walmart Savings Catcher

Ibotta

MobiSave

Ebates

Receipt Hog (earn rewards for grocery receipts)

Shopkick (earn rewards for walking into a store)

Watching Videos + Listening to Music

Can we please just stop with the Swagbucks nonsense already? Please. It is such a waste of time and iPhone battery life and it won’t make you much money. Plus, who wants to make money with advertisements if you have to actually watch the ads yourself!?

Slice The Pie isn’t any better. If you haven’t heard of it it’s basically reviewing snippets of music no one has ever heard for money. And by money of course I mean pennies.

Transcription

I’m really not a fan of these transcription sites only because if you are skilled in transcribing, you should be charging way more for your services. Mostly because there are so many rules to follow and listening to the same sentence over and over again seriously sucks. But hey, if that’s what you’re into, go for it. I’m just saying don’t try to make a career out of sites like Transcribe Me.

All I’m asking is that you value your time and realize that you worth so much more than $1/hr. Go out there and hustle but do it in a way that is fulfilling and respects your talents. How do you make money online?

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It’s always fun checking my inbox to find people I had connected with asking me where the hell I’ve been. That was pretty much me a few weeks ago after taking a family vacation with the in-laws to Lake Tahoe. Vacation? While getting out of debt? Yea, well, let’s call it a family reunion instead.

Doesn’t it seem like right when you’re getting ahead, life says “SURPRISE!!!” and suddenly all the email inboxes you’re in charge of go from 0 to over 200 unread emails?? Anyone else? Excuses aside, sometimes we all get distracted by life and end up letting ourselves down. Sometimes our goals go flying out the window and we don’t take the time to go outside, pick them up, dust them off, and give them the attention they need for a few days. Or weeks. Or (hopefully not) months.

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As I get further and further into my freelance career and blogging journey, I’m finding that some things are absolutely nonnegotiable to stay productive. Working from home is such a blessing and I still can’t believe that I’m able to do it. I never anticipated, however, just how much discipline it takes to be successful in this kind of working environment. You can read more about my freelancing career here. Without having a boss walking through your living room to check on progress and an ugly office to keep thoughts of personal issues at bay, staying focused can be incredibly difficult.

Each week I try and evaluate how I spent my time and think of ways to get more work done next week. Honestly, half of this time I spend brainstorming is really spent just wishing I had like 6 more hours in each day. I can’t control how many hours are in a day but I can control how I spend them. Here are some things I do to maximize my productivity while working from home and I hope they can help you too!

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It’s March. It’s the start of Spring. I’m daydreaming of spring cleaning the house but then, again why stop there? Why not spring clean our finances too? I think one of the best ways to do this is to kick off the season with a no spend challenge. Now, if you’re on Pinterest at all with any sort of interest in personal finance, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Many bloggers have talked about the joys of saving with a no spend weekend, week, or month. Well, it’s my turn!

Over the next two weeks beginning Monday March 6th, I’m going on a spending freeze! Yay! So what does this mean for me exactly? Let me explain.

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Happy March! Can you believe it is almost Spring?? I am so thrilled because Winter and I just do not get along. Who’s with me? I just can’t stand the layers and the snow and um being cold. Really, truly, it is not my cup of tea. Maybe, if these income reports keep going the way they do, I’ll be able to travel all winter long to tropical paradises around the world! #Goals am I right?

Okay enough of that, let’s get into my February 2017 income report. If you haven’t already read my income report from January, you’ll probably be surprised to see I’m making close to $2000 every month now. I’m telling y’all, the hustle seriously pays off. Keep at it! I know there are so many people who make way, way more than I do but I also know there are people less experienced than me who need a little inspiration. If I can be that for you, AWESOME!

Now, I have couponed before but I never had the right supplies so it wasn’t as organized as it should have been. I also didn’t see as much benefit as I know I could have had I used the right tools. Near the end of December, I ordered my supplies noted above and I grabbed all of the inserts I had been collecting and began getting everything situated. I can proudly say that I have a binder full of coupons that are clipped, organized, and ready to go. I am so excited to see the savings! But why am I going through the trouble if we have survived without it for so long?

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! It is 2017 can you even believe it? If you’re new to the blog, let me fill you in a little bit. Last year I was a stay-at-home mom and wanted to make a financial difference for my family. Living off a low-income is kind of a vicious circle, however and it felt like I couldn’t find a solution.

If I got a job, we would have to pay for daycare and possibly get a second car and with my experience, I would have some horrible retail job with equally horrible hours. So after scouring Pinterest and various blogs, I decided I would create my own job from scratch with zero start up cost. My ultimate goal was and still is to run a fashion/lifestyle blog but I knew starting a blog cost money. You can read more about what it really costs to start a profitable blog here. (Hint: It isn’t just $3.95/month)

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If you have read through my November 2016 income report already, you probably have an idea of what I’m going to be talking about. I said this in that report, but I want to say it again because it has really hit home for me. Too much of anything, ambition included, is never healthy. In other words, everything in moderation. You really can have too much of a good thing. Trust me.

I have always been and will forever be someone who believes in the direct relationship between input and output. What you put in to something directly correlates to what you get out. If you put an hour a week into your blog, well you either have a ton of people working on it for you, or you’re only going to see that much effort from your readers and from Google. [Read more…]